The daily scrum provides an opportunity for team members to synchronize their activities and ensure alignment towards the sprint goal. By sharing updates on their progress and plans for the day, team members can identify potential conflicts or dependencies and adjust their work accordingly.
The daily scrum is the second time-boxed meeting, typically lasting around 15 minutes. Keeping the daily scrum time-boxed helps prevent it from turning into a lengthy status update meeting and ensures that team members can quickly get back to their work with a clear understanding of their priorities for the day.
Participants
The Daily Scrum is attended by the development team including testers, the Scrum Master, and the Product Owner (optional).
Agenda
The daily scrum typically follows a simple agenda to keep the meeting focused and productive. Here’s a common agenda for the daily scrum:
- What Did You Accomplish Yesterday?: Each team member briefly shares what tasks they completed since the last daily scrum. This provides visibility into progress and helps the team understand what has been accomplished.
- What Will You Do Today?: Each team member outlines their plans for the day, including the tasks they intend to work on. This helps the team coordinate their efforts and ensures that everyone is aligned on priorities.
- Are There Any Impediments?: Team members highlight any obstacles or challenges they’re facing that may impact their progress. This could include technical issues, dependencies on other team members, or external factors. The Scrum Master may help address these impediments or facilitate discussions on how to resolve them.
The focus of the daily scrum is on providing quick updates, identifying any potential roadblocks, and coordinating activities to ensure progress towards the sprint goal. Keeping the agenda concise and focused helps maintain the time-boxed nature of the meeting and ensures that team members can quickly get back to their work with a clear understanding of their priorities for the day.
Preparation
The development team can take several steps to prepare for the daily scrum effectively:
- Review Progress: Before the daily scrum, team members review their progress on tasks since the last meeting. This includes identifying completed tasks, any work in progress, and tasks that remain to be done.
- Prioritize Tasks: Team members prioritize their tasks for the day based on the sprint goal and the team’s commitments. They consider which tasks are most critical to achieving the sprint goal and ensure they are prepared to discuss these during the daily scrum.
- Identify Impediments: Team members identify any obstacles or impediments they’re facing that may impact their progress. This could include technical challenges, dependencies on other team members, or any external factors affecting their work.
- Prepare Updates: Each team member prepares brief updates on their progress, including what they accomplished since the last daily scrum and what they plan to work on next. This ensures that they can quickly provide updates during the meeting without needing to gather their thoughts on the spot.
- Collaborate with Team Members: Team members may collaborate with each other before the daily scrum to discuss any dependencies or coordinate their efforts. This ensures that they’re aligned on priorities and can support each other in achieving their goals.
By taking these steps to prepare for the daily scrum, the development team can ensure that the meeting is focused, productive, and helps them stay aligned towards achieving the sprint goal.
